


i'm gonna run (like the blood from a wound)

by luminaries



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cold War, Espionage, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Terrorism, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:37:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminaries/pseuds/luminaries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels like the sort of kindness you give to a man when you kiss his cheek before sending him to a firing squad.</p>
<p>AU, Cold War era spy fiction, set in East Berlin</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm gonna run (like the blood from a wound)

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for murder, terrorism, arson and torture, and while this is a story that focuses specifically on the dirty, ugly things these hard-edged people make their living on, stale beer flavored spy fiction if you will, and on the tensions between humanity and loyalty to a higher purpose, I've kept the violence as ambiguous as I could, considering the subject matter. State sanctioned brutality is present, however, and the torture mentioned includes sensory deprivation. Mental health issues include PTSD, flashbacks to war atrocities, the sense of loss of control and other unhealthy thought processes.
> 
> Based on [this prompt](http://relenita.tumblr.com/post/65537588403/what-if-snk-eruri-au-put-in-the-last-years-of-the/) , though it doesn't follow it to the letter.
> 
> Scroll down to the bottom of the page for explanations on various historical references.

He sees the man he’s hunting across a plaza littered with debris, in bars where the air is thick with tobacco smoke, out of the corner of his eye, in the meticulous destruction he leaves behind like breadcrumbs in a labyrinth, in the files he receives from his superiors, a name and a face and an identity that’s been fractured and put together more times than he can count. But now he’s here, he’s flesh and blood when Levi looks at him down the scope of his rifle and it would be so easy, just a press of a finger, all calculated, all quantifiable. His hands never shake but there are strange skitters working their way beneath his skin and then the bastard turns around and fucking _smiles_ at him, politely feral, and if this is the strike of the match that will burn them both alive, well, there are worse ways to go.

 

 

 

 

It starts with an order, like most things in his life tend to do.

“We have received allegations of a possible security breach. The work of terrorists from the looks of it, but not the usual type.”

Metzger is Levi’s state appointed handler, and not much has changed from his days in the military, a wolf with a new face and mannerisms but always the same habits. He’d be the soft-spoken grandfatherly type if not for the unsettling way his pale eyes tend to focus too intensely on a person, like he could pick them apart piece by piece and study their intricacies. If there’s one thing Levi knows, it’s to leave ample tourniquet space when offering his hand to men like him.

“A security breach? Haven’t the Stasi tracked down possible avenues? They must have picked up some chatter from the hideouts in the slums.”

“They haven’t. Which is why we suspect they have inside help. Your mission is to uncover the man behind the curtain, and make no mistake, until the head is cut off, the body of this so-called _resistance movement_ will not wither. Find out who he is, what his plans are, what lies he’s been spreading and bring him in _alive_.”

In the same breath Metzger presses a file into his hands and Levi wastes no time in flipping it open and from the looks of it, this man’s resume is _impressive_. An officer fatally shot in Pankow. An explosion that the public report ruled as having been caused by a gas leak in Lichtenberg. Forced entry into the office of a government official, and that’s just the first few pages.

“So, “ Levi pauses for a few seconds before he continues, “ worst case scenario: our instigator is an enemy agent and not just some embittered fool, knows his way around our protocols and how to convince someone that he’s fighting the good fight, along with possibly having military training. And he also has the foresight to make his actions as confusing as possible to an outside observer, if I’m correct in assuming all of these incidents are connected.”

“Indeed, however we do not know which of them are coincidences and which of them are fronts for whatever else he’s been planning. Nevertheless, this is your mission. You know what to do.”

 

 

 

 

There’s always a war to fight, somewhere, and first there were the trenches, a line of starved, shivering, grizzled men and he amongst them and what matters to Levi is not how well he lines up his kill shot or how fast he can sprint across a frozen moor before a machine gun takes his legs out from under him, but an order is an order, means not having snow shoveled over him in a shallow grave. When he comes back from the cold, feral in ways that no longer show on his face, with too many dog tags hanging from his neck, not one of them clean, he expects the hideous coil inside, that not-quite-vicious paranoia that’s kept him alive and awake for thirty hours at a time, to come out like blood pulled from a stone.

What happens instead is that his superiors call him _the success,_ hand him a medal that means everything and nothing. (Levi swallows thickly when he thinks of all the fellow soldiers that have laid down their lives for his and this is not victory, not salvation, and the world shifts beneath his feet, and)

Now he is no longer the boy who escaped the Holodomor and found a wolf waiting for him on the other side, so he is sent out again, a new mission and new comrades who have no name for the way he balances atop a moving tank, gun pointed at the target with inhuman accuracy, breathing smoke between his bared teeth.

_Consolidation_ , is what they call it in the command rooms, and Levi expected that his end would come in the form of an officer too stupid to read a map giving them all some bullshit orders that would lead to them being blown apart to kingdom come. Goes to show that it’s not what you expect that kills you, which is why he’s in the middle of the _Undeutsche Undemokratische Diktatur,_ mouth curling around words that aren’t his, in an apartment that still has its previous tenant’s belongings neatly arranged on the shelves and in the wardrobe.

He hasn’t fired a gun in years, not in the least because they haven’t given him one, but he keeps a knife within easy reach. A matter of habit, Levi supposes, and for every cigarette he smokes there’s another five page report of a suspected incident to read through.

What he needs is a name and a face and what he has is a map of a city where no battle lines are drawn, except in ink, eyewitness accounts that are useless at best and a list of enough informants to keep him busy for the next three days.

Five years ago ( _or was it seven? time keeps slipping between his fingers like liquid and it isn’t enough, this slow monstering_ ) when they scrubbed his identity clean, repurposed him like something to be manufactured, not human at all, and turned him into a spy, even if one that only operates within the borders of his own country, they taught him all the tricks of the trade.

He’s always had that cold burn of survival pulsing at the back of his skull, but now there’s also the distraction of putting on a strange, new demeanor over his own self, like a glove over a distractingly scarred hand. It alleviates the boredom, cajoling the truth out of these… valuable members of a post-revolutionary world, but then again a file has never made him feel sick before. You win some, you lose some, as always.

 

 

 

 

The man he’s supposed to be meeting at the corner of Kiefholzstraße and Dammweg in the Treptow borough is the last one for today and Levi is starting to look forward to curling up near the shitty heater in his apartment. So far he’s had no luck, no more than a few wild rumors floating around and it’s strange, so very strange that for someone that’s clearly targeting the perceived guilty, members of the Vopos and Stasi, along with other attacks meant to spread unease, there’s no talk amongst the working class.

Fear has a way of twisting the perspective, and maybe the factory workers were not afraid when the tanks came rolling in and the air was heavy with shouts and gunfire, like a curtain.  They were fighting for something noble. But now there is nothing noble in being afraid of speaking, in caring about making it to tomorrow without the Vopos battering down your door like fiends. That’s what the people say to their children, _Learn to sit still and never look up. Breathe softly, lest they hear you and drag you off to some unseen place where they will pick your fingernails off one by one like leaves until you confess. Everyone is corrupt, even if they don’t know it, and only they can make you see the truth_.

In some ways they were all already dead. All equal. The stranger knows how to tread carefully in this new world and there’s something like a thrill of anticipation working down Levi’s spine at the thought of this agent playing his cards so close to his chest.

They were taught to blend in, after all; only heroes have use for showmanship.

_At least what he said on the phone seemed promising,_ Levi thinks as he sees the informant walk as fast as his short legs can carry him towards the meeting point. Werner has the bearing of someone who’s suffered indignities all his life, and Levi knows from other sources that he has a wife he probably despises, judging by the ring he never wears, and two kids he doesn’t think much about.

He supposes that ratting out people to the Secret Police gives Werner the illusion of control and feeds that cruel vindictiveness of his.

_Pathetic._

“I’m so glad you could meet me on such short notice, comrade,” Werner says as he holds out his right hand for a shake. “Truly we are beset by anti-revolutionary forces on all sides. Just as soon as one criminal is imprisoned, another three pop out of the shadows. Preposterous!”

“It is as you say.” The expression on Levi’s face remains wholly unwelcoming, even as he reaches out to shake his hand. “Now, let’s take a walk to the Spree and you tell me everything you know. In detail.”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir. Commandant Zakharov said it best, did he not? When he said that people fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal and the not-yet-caught. Such inspiring words, yes and – oh, where was I? Ah, the matter of that dreadful terrorist, well, you see, he’s been very careful to hide his tracks—“

Levi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Could you get to the point, Werner?” If all this ended without him getting a headache, it would be a miracle.

“Yes, uhm, well… as I was saying, I caught a glimpse of a man acting very suspiciously on Bitterfelder Straße. He seemed to be lost or looking for someone, but no true comrade would dawdle like that, especially near the government offices.”

_Well, maybe this day hasn’t been a complete waste._ “When did this happen?”

“Around three months ago. I think it was the 3rd of September, but I can’t be sure.”

_Good, good. This is just before the documents were stolen from that official’s station,_ Levi thinks. “Do you remember what this man looked like, any distinctive features?”

“There was something peculiar about him, I can’t say exactly what,” Werner says, fiddling nervously with his sleeves. “But at first, I almost didn’t notice him. He had this confidence, like he was _meant_ to be there, you know. Your eyes would just slide off him like he was completely unremarkable. It was only later that I noticed he seemed to be searching for something. And, um, he had a strong build, broad shoulders, blond hair, blue eyes. The Aryan ideal at its best. He wore civilian clothes, nothing sp—“

A passing man collides into Werner with enough force to send him stumbling back, and then it’s a quick _apologies, comrade_ as the stranger lifts up his collar against the cold and the snow before quickening his pace. Werner is left sputtering his indignation, rubbing his arm where he had been hit.

“Such disrespect! He doesn’t know who I am or else he’d be _begging_ me for forgiveness. Oh, I could ruin his life… if only I had his name…”

“What’s done is done. Someone running from the cold is of no importance to us right now. Please, continue,” Levi says, and hell if this whole politeness act doesn’t make him want to crawl out of his skin.

“Yes, well, I stayed hidden, and followed this man until I saw him enter a building. An office from the looks of it, maybe the place where he works. The window was too high for me to see inside, but I’ve written down the address.” Werner takes out a small notebook from his coat pocket with a shaking hand and squints at the words. “10 Sophienstraße, Prenzlauer Berg.” His voice starts to break, and Levi notices that he began to sweat, even in the low temperature.

“Werner, are you –?”

“No, no, I’m fine, it’ll pass, I’m sure.” Werner swallows thickly and his eyes lose focus before he continues, “You’ll excuse me, I’m feeling ill all of a sudden, I – I think I’m going to –“

Before Levi has any chance of intervening, of saying something — because this isn’t _normal_ , this doesn’t happen here, in this world, and his mind is whirling in a fit, _blast radius_ and _chemical attack_ , _mustard gas_ and _skin breaking out in boils_ and there isn’t enough _time —_ Werner is already rushing to the other side of the street, to the place where a small alleyway opens up onto the boulevard.

Levi looks away in disgust, traitorous body giving off a shudder, a brief, aborted little thing, and he almost convinces himself that it’s nothing, that it’s tiredness and bad dreams that set his teeth on edge a few moments ago, but then he sees the blood flow thick across the pavement and he _knows_.

Ten minutes and he almost breaks his wrist hauling Werner after him towards the nearest hospital.

Two hours and Werner is dead, his body lying on stained cotton sheets, his lungs filled with liquid, and Levi is off in a sideroom, somewhere in the building, trying to coax the death out of his sinews with warm water. It didn’t work until now, but you never know, maybe today it will.

This is what cakes onto his knees when he crawls over the bodies, this is what hides under his fingernails when he washes his hands, all red, red, red, this is the scream that lives in the back of his throat and the famine in his bones. This is a poisoned needle and a well-timed kick and _that fucking bastard thinks he’s so smart—_

Two days and Levi has a lockpick, a lighter, enough gas to make this worthwhile, an old friend by his side and by now he’s definitely feeling more like himself again.

 

 

 

 

“Now, don’t you go thinking that, just because you brought me a brand new bottle of vodka, I’ll forget all your sins, Lev’ka. You still owe me a horse and a grenade from that time in Lutsk.”

“Oh, give me a break, will you, Sadko? And stop calling me _Lev’ka_ ; you’re not my mother,” Levi says as Sadko’s eyebrow goes crawling up his face, and damn if he didn’t miss talking to someone who remembers him as more than a symbol on the wind.

Both of them came from the same place, same rat-infested barracks, same training, and then they were reassigned, left the regiment, and presumably got their brains back. _Presumably_ being the key word here, as they were both foolish enough not to throw their luggage over the barbed wire to West Berlin _before_ a 12 ft. wall got built overnight.

“Don’t even get me started. Do you have any idea how many bets I lost because the other soldiers wouldn’t believe the stunts you pulled were real?”

“Ah, well, you’re in luck, I have a solution for that. Stop gambling,” Levi says and almost hides his smirk behind his vodka glass before he remembers that he doesn’t drink.

“Like hell I will. Still, a German had you beat. Now you tell me how one man can enter a town posing as an army inspector, order around four grenadiers, a sergeant and a handful of soldiers, arrest the mayor and confiscate the entire city treasury almost without getting arrested, and then obtain a pardon from the Kaiser himself, with a straight face and I will bow down to your superior acting skills,” Sadko says, chuckling. “Come to think of it, this reminds of that spy you’re after. After making the secret police look like bumbling fools and, worst of all, spreading some hope amongst the people, all the while leaving a bloody trail behind him without getting caught, I’m starting to believe he’s the boldest bastard I’ve seen yet.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a lead on him. He’s not as untouchable as he seems. Now,” Levi says, tapping his cigarette against the ashtray before leaning back in his chair, “Sadko, you’re the most honest police officer I know, so offer me this bit of advice. Do I bring him in? Or do I let him continue doing what he is doing?”

“You have a far too good opinion of me. Time has passed and I am old and tired of these games and I’ve seen the small evils persist while people like you fight against the big ones. Maybe vodka has made me bitter; I don’t know. You want to know what I think? I think you should give him a goddamn medal.”

 

 

 

 

“Excuse me, sir, I think you dropped this,” and it’s all such a shamefaced lie, hypocrisy a parlor game for them, but Levi’s been waiting for the time when the curtain rises and he’s free to bare his teeth in challenge. Now, before this man in a bespoke suit turns, he takes the time to inhale, moves his fingers until he can feel his ligaments pop (one-two-three-four- _five_ ) and exhales a smoky breath.

Once the tell-tale signs of recognition appear on the agent’s face, he decides it’s time to crush whatever hope he has that this confrontation is a mistake, something salvageable, and whispers “Erwin Smith,” then waits for the inevitable fallout, poised and keen.

The blood doesn’t quite drain from Erwin’s face, because of course it doesn’t. Because he’s always known this could happen; because he's a grown man in a line of work for which desensitization is a prerequisite; because, all things considered, this should be the least of his worries.

Still, there is only one question: Who is to win? And that is never answered with words. So he pulls out a knife he had hidden in the folds of his coat, holding it so tight that his knuckles bulge and stands frozen, in a city of ice, snow falling around and on them both.

“Bringing a knife to a fistfight? Hardly seems fair,” Levi says.

“From what I know, you _are_ the knife in a fistfight,” Erwin says, and his eyes are moved to sharpness. “Isn’t that right, Wolf of Kramatorsk?”

“Don’t push your luck,” Levi spits. “I could peel you like a grape right here and even God would call it justice. But there’s something I want to know. You and I are both aware that spying means running the long game, means being so good you leave no trace behind, not even a body. All evidence to the contrary, you’re not the type to kill indiscriminately. You’re trying to attract someone’s attention. Who is it?”

Erwin looks thoughtful for a moment before answering, “Supposing, for argument’s sake, I said I wanted to draw _your_ attention—how would you react?”

“Doubtfully to badly, depending on your presentation,” Levi says, then sighs with a sort of strange weariness, like they’ve been running circles around each other for a lifetime. “Never expected you’d give me a straight answer anyway. Then again, it’s not exactly in your best interest for this conversation to go on for much longer, Erwin.”

“And why would that be, _Levi_?”

“Well, if you were to start running back to your office, say, about now,” Levi says, making a show out of checking his watch, “you might actually manage to save something from the fire,” and, _oh_ , but he is definitely pleased at the sight of Erwin’s eyes widening in surprise, his jaw moving like he has war sitting on the rough of his tongue.

“You… burnt down my office.”

“You killed my informant.”

“Oh, _that._ I didn’t think you cared,” Erwin spits.

“Snideness doesn’t become you. But don’t worry, I made sure that your more interesting documents are safe and sound. I’m certain they’ll make for an intriguing read,” Levi says, and when Erwin makes as if to attack, he spits, “Go ahead. Charge at me with that butterknife of yours. See where that takes you.”

Erwin looks surprised for a moment before looking at the knife and saying,” This isn’t for you. Know how they always say _the only good spy is a dead spy_? Guess that cuts both ways.”

“ _Fuck_ you. One way or another, the only way we get out of this game is with either you or me dead at the other’s hand. Now call it.”

“If you think I’ll—“

“You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension. _I’m_ in charge here, not _you_. _Call it_ ,” and of all the things Levi expected to see, rage and viciousness and perhaps hatred, a grin was not it.

“Check, Levi. You really are as good as they say,” Erwin throws over his shoulder as he hurries down the alleyway.

“I saved a suit I like, too,” Levi shouts after him. “Had to have at least some compensation for spending two days mapping out your movements.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to wear it the next time we see each other,” Erwin shouts back.

When Levi slides into the passenger seat of Sadko’s car and hears the engine purr back to life is when he realizes that the weight on his shoulders is not as suffocating as before. Not that he could ever tell what it was that plagued him, always too unclear to get a reading, too far out to get a good grasp and running is always a good, if cowardly, solution.

It’s been biting at his heels for as long as he can tell and when he finally, _finally_ , comes back from the war it will be over, except now he’s come back, and come back, and come back, every night, from a foxhole filled with more blood than rain, a scream dancing on his lips, and while it was somehow worth the price he’d paid to get out of the barren steppe, it wasn’t worth this, but—

—but now, it feels a lot like there’s nothing to come back to; it feels like he’s finally free to spin on his feet and choose, and _that’s the tricky part, isn’t it, cracking beneath the weight of your own walls_.

It feels a lot like falling.

 

 

 

 

This time, they give him a gun, tell him that the mission won’t end with his hands around someone’s throat.

The stolen files proved to offer no leverage, as they were either fabricated to make Erwin’s cover more believable or written in code. By estimates, they could take weeks, or more accurately, months to crack. Somehow, this loss of time and resources should smart him more than it does, Levi thinks.

Metzger questions him again and again, hisses sibilant in his ear like a long-forgotten conscience, always _root him out_ , _root him out_ and for all that information is a commodity in their world, it doesn’t matter once an execution has been bought.

“The world is changing,” Metzger offers as an explanation, and beneath it, a hidden, much more terrible truth. The world has not changed. When they gave the order, what they feared about Erwin Smith was not the death he can cause ( _the only thing that remains unrationed in this place_ ), but the violent black hole of hope he can become.

_Like a preacher, I sell vision_ , Erwin never says, but it still insidiously becomes part and parcel of the opium of the masses, the careful design that says: first we will eat your love, then your courage, your will and your despair, a feast of tender, pinched, papery flesh and strong spirits, barbed wire artfully nesting the margins. Later, with clockwork precision, Erwin’s pattern will grow to reflect and subvert it.

“Make him destroy himself,” Metzger says, as if Levi is set to face a beast whose weakness lies in its own sting. “And Levi,” he continues, using the name like a choke chain before the spy can turn around and numb his mind to the words. “If all else fails… death can be the ultimate intimacy.”

 

 

 

 

Which is how they’ve both arrived at this turning point, Levi looking out the window of a 3rd floor room and where there is smoke, there must always be fire, so when he sees it in Erwin’s eyes as he stares back at him from the end of his gun, it feels very much like burning alive.

The axis shifts, equilibrium uncertain, and when Levi twists his mouth in a snarl, the door to the apartment breaks into splinters beneath heavy boots and six armed men come barreling in. Levi takes the fact that they haven’t put a bullet between his eyes yet as confirmation that he is meant to be taken alive.

No time left to point and shoot, but enough momentum to break the nearest assailant’s nose with the butt of his rifle, the sickening crunch bringing a grim satisfaction. The rest of the goons don’t even slow down, thinking that the fight will be over once they manage to crowd Levi into a corner, and one of them manages to take his weapon away, throwing it haphazardly across the room. Levi is almost disappointed that the gun doesn’t backfire.

_They’re really not good at this_ , he thinks, pressing down on another man’s elbow until the ligaments snap. _Not that they have to be. They still have guns._

As if on cue, one of them fires a warning shot too close to be safe, the sharp sound temporarily deafening, and the second Levi spares to clutch at his ear and swear under his breath is enough for the men to wrestle him down to the floor and bind him tight enough that his muscles scream in protest.

They don’t speak a single word. Not when they help the wounded bandage up, not even when Erwin crosses the threshold and orders them off with a single nod.

It’s the humiliation, Levi supposes, that makes the blood boil in his veins like it seldom did before. That and having to inhale five months’ worth of dust off the floor.

“Thought you could afford to hire better muscle than this,” Levi says.

“They got the job done, didn’t they,” Erwin replies, tone flat, doesn’t say anything else for a few seconds, and there’s still that something in his eyes that makes Levi’s insides move like a squirm of eels.

“Are you going to say something, or did you just want to stare at me at your leisure? Get a fucking move on, I haven’t got all day.”

The quiet noise Erwin made scared the hell out of Levi, until he realized that he was laughing.

“You spent every single day of the past four months chasing me and now that we’re finally alone in a room, able to have a nice, long chat, you become apprehensive. Why is that?” Erwin says, crouching down, and for all that his fight or flight response is broken beyond repair, Levi is still surprised at himself for not spitting in Erwin’s face when he had the chance.

“What I have for you is a proposition,” Erwin continues with a sigh, disappointed at him being so tight-lipped, and now it’s Levi’s turn to let out a startled, throaty chuckle.

“Are you asking me to run away with you? Why, Erwin, I don’t know what to say—“

“I’m asking you to defect to my side,” Erwin says and leaves it at that, meaning _it’s your choice_ , meaning _you haven’t been compromised yet_ , but there’s also something darker and harder to quantify. Something that might register as vulnerability in a line of work where the wins and losses are ambiguous at best and rely on taking advantage of other people’s weaknesses.

Erwin must notice the way Levi’s face crumbles, because he says,” I’m not taking you out of this place to throw you to the wolves afterwards. We ride this out, complete the mission, and you can work out your own retirement plan,” and his voice is slow, gentle in a way that makes Levi’s teeth hurt, because, from what he knows, Erwin can be understanding, can listen to what you have to say, can be less than actively hostile, sure, but _kindness_? That just doesn’t sit right.

It feels like the sort of kindness you give to a man when you kiss his cheek before sending him to a firing squad.

“So you would make me a traitor as well as a corpse, is that it? Get yourself a nice, golden medal when you come back to your country. The man who tamed the wolf,” Levi snarls, and _oh_ if only Erwin leaned in a bit closer, he could sink his teeth in the bastard’s neck all the way to the bone.

Erwin waits out the outburst, and that’s when Levi realizes he’d been shaking, whether from rage or strain, he can’t tell, then he continues,

“Before you were a spy, you were a soldier. A good one. They trusted you to do your job right, the same way my superiors trust me. But then suddenly, you get reassigned; to a place that has no ties to your former life, no less. An enclosed city where they can watch your every move. Now, this is a guess, but I believe I’m on point when I ask you – what order did you disobey to end up like this?”

“Go to hell, Smith! What the fuck do you know about this, huh?!”

“I don’t, which is why I’m asking. I’m not concerned with your ‘propensity to betray your employers’ or some such bullshit. I’m concerned with your grievances regarding the system you work for,” Erwin says, standing up abruptly. “I know what it feels like to have your edges sharpened. To be turned into a weapon. I know what they expect you to give up, how they grab hold of a loose thread and pull until you come undone.”

Erwin begins pacing the length of the room, the tension visible in his shoulders speaking volumes.

“I’m not here to tell you that salvation waits on the other side of the Wall. The wars there are the same as the ones fought here, always the same poor young men joining the Army because that’s the only choice they have, killing other young men from even poorer places, with a good bit of unarmed civilians thrown in to serve as trench padding. The only thing that’s different is the ideology, the blood has the same colour.”

“If you’re done big-speechifying, wasn’t it my job to blow holes in your unshakeable belief in the purity of your ideal?” Levi says, smirk cutting its way across his face.

“Well, yes, but I think we’re past the kiddy games. Just wanted to stress that there is as little worth on your side as there is on mine,” Erwin says, pulling out a chair to sit on from the corner of the chamber.

“That’s cute and all, but do you think you could help me up? I can’t feel my left arm anymore,” Levi says, doesn’t try to escape when Erwin moves to oblige. Not that he’d make it far with the gun Smith has hidden underneath his jacket.

“Why are you doing this, then? Do you have some fucked up savior complex, or are you just trying to make amends for past sins?” Levi asks once he’s settled on the floor, and Erwin looks up at the ceiling, ostensibly in thought.

“Frankly, what I want to do is give you a choice, and even a rotten one is better than nothing at all. Take it or leave it, that’s your decision. But if you do agree, then I can promise you that you won’t be tried for war crimes, or interrogated and thrown into prison with no fanfare,” Erwin replies with a conviction that Levi wishes he could believe in for just a second.

“You can promise me that, yeah?”

“Yes. Worse men than you have escaped trial and are now free to pursue their lifelong dream to drink champagne from crystal glasses while they watch the world burn,” Erwin says with a wry smile.

Levi looks at Erwin for a long moment, face a study in impassivity, exhausted by him and for him, of all the energy he’s been burning to be this angry when he spends so much time at neutral, before saying,

“You called me a good soldier. You also wanted to know what lead to me becoming a spy. If there’s something you must know about me, it’s that my supreme protocol is survival. It’s not completing the mission, it’s not bringing you in at any cost, it’s not breaking Simo Häyhä’s record. There was a time when I was loyal to a fault, blinded myself to the cruelties of my superiors in order to become a perfect soldier, but soldiers don’t walk into villages with the safety off, and they’re not the only ones to walk out alive afterwards. They’re not made to just kill, or to abandon their comrades to be devoured by the winter. I realized far too late that it was my own humanity I’d have to drag piece by piece out of the dark, that it wasn’t enough just to be a wolf.

“I fought back against what I was made to do and paid the price. Now, these streets belong to the Party, who makes and remakes them in tempered steel, as it does the world, the stars and me. Understand what I mean when I say that I don’t yearn for peace or absolution, that I have and will always know how to shoot a gun, and I will come to you on my knees with a revolution in my hands,” Levi says, words like a black stone falling in the silence of the room.

Erwin looks him in the eye, and Levi sees all the promises there.

“You realize that there’s no turning back after this, right?” Erwin says, as mildly as he can.

Levi snorts. “I may be tired of running, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop doing it. There’s no future for me here and they’re already voicing their disappointments about my inability to capture you down the wires. Soon I’ll be nothing but a liability. Fit to be killed,” he says, and Erwin frowns. “I don’t like it, but you’re my only ticket out of here and, right now, I’m the kid who wants to run away with the circus,” Levi says, smirking like it’s being pried out of him.

Erwin nods once, as if coming to a silent agreement with himself, his blue eyes filling with blood, a sign Levi would later associate with the sort of furious passion and foolhardiness that would accompany him throwing a Molotov cocktail through a window to make a point that words have no room for, or slamming himself against a riot shield hard enough to cover his body in fifteen different shades of black and blue.

For the scarce few moments when Erwin is not his, when he believes that the inferno rages far more beautifully when you’re up close and personal, right in the center of it, being immolated in that same breath.

“Very well, then. I believe I have the honor of welcoming you into the SIS,” Erwin says, and the hand he rests on Levi’s neck, fingers curling around a pulsepoint, burns him like a brand.

 

 

 

 

The next few months are an exercise in patience, information passed around street corners on a need-to-know basis, but time sweetens the transition, and so the dossiers grow thicker, more compromising, until Levi has carved a space for himself inside the system.

At first, when he’d explained the signs and counter-signs used by Soviet agents, with specific emphasis on not confusing GRU codes with KGB codes, as, while interagency rivalry is generally frowned upon, they’re liable to be more offended by the misuse than by the fact that one is an enemy agent boldly bluffing his way into stealing as many state secrets as one can carry, Erwin had frowned and called it all ridiculous and outdated.

In retribution, Levi had included as much _ofenya_ slang into his speech as he could, until Erwin finally cracked and admitted that they were better off creating their own code. The one he’d devised involved signaling a sequence of numbers by turn so that it added up to a previously agreed sum. Not as dramatic as rattling off non-sequiturs or holding a newspaper in a very specific way, but it lent itself well to discretion.

This way one of them could tap a number in Morse on the surface of a table, hidden behind nonchalantly beating the devil’s tattoo, a signal for a signal, until the true meaning was revealed, a street in the one borough where the past was least likely to catch up to either of them.

Face to face meetings had grown scarce, what with informants being a dime a dozen, the risk of being seen was too great, and even an unfounded suspicion was as good as a death sentence. Levi had started to assume that his apartment was being watched at all times, paranoia and _what ifs_ combining with fatigue to make the days bleed into one another, a dark, glossy limbo replacing reality as he knew it.

Erwin hadn’t told him much about himself, not that Levi would resent him for it, having secrets of his own that he wouldn’t spill even under threat of torture, but what he did say had been chilling enough as it is.

He doesn’t remember much about his parents, or even what country he’d been born in, as he’d crossed too many borders for it to be anything but a blur, but one thing Erwin does remember with pitch-perfect clarity is the briefing he’d received when he’d been ordered to go after a rogue agent.

In the midst of lauding that agent’s superb record, ingenuity and worth, the handler, perhaps forgetting himself, had let slip the words _his raw material was splendid; he had all the proper childhood traumas_ with the sort of indifference one couldn’t even associate with cruelty. It was just that, callousness, nothingness, a void of feeling. The rest of the meeting turned into white noise after that point.

“I shuddered then to think of the implications, but I couldn’t let them see that it bothered me. I don’t think I stopped shuddering for _weeks_ ,” Erwin said, his haunted expression horribly vivid for someone in their profession. “Is that all we are? A pawn to be shot in the back for becoming the dispassionate creature they themselves helped create? Will I turn into the same thing as that agent, when the surface tension breaks and I freefall into mad dog territory? Like a star burning too hot too fast…”

Sometimes, the best and only comfort is knowing that someone else made it through the same thing you did and came out on top. Levi hadn’t; didn’t even come close enough to leveling out for it to count as a try. But if there’s something else he’s good at besides fighting, it’s lying through his teeth, and it’s a skill that could do without the perpetual selfishness inherent in it. Erwin must see through the pithy words, but takes the gesture for what it is, a small consolation, even if the twist of his mouth is still grim as it tries to work its way into a smile.

_Mourning is reserved for a human being, not for an asset_ , the handler had finished, the nail driven home into the coffin with a finality that had made Erwin’s teeth ache.

 

 

 

 

Levi isn’t much of a man for obsessing over the past. You make peace where you can and you move on, is what he’d always thought, and history was never only water rolling off his back, just that he never allowed himself the very human behavior of wringing his hands and second guessing his every move. Tragedy was a foul, sharp-edged beast, with far too many jagged points for it to be grasped safely without cutting yourself open, and Levi had given up on trying to fit it all together neatly, opting for filing it under _dark things I do not regret but will never speak of_ and calling it a day.

Still, there’s something to be said about losing yourself for a while in your work, so when Erwin gives him a hit mission, some bigshot nomenklatura, a step above faceless bureaucrats, but still resigned to the sole purpose of keeping the government engine up and running, Levi starts feeling more alive by the day.

He can remember every sentence of a conversation, every word read off a piece of paper before he sets it alight, catalogues every possibility, every escape, every vicious act that happens only in his mind, keeps it all painfully, fastidiously organized out of fear of upsetting his own white walls with the deluge of information. It wasn’t always like this. Times change, and people change with them.

Now, he has the map of Berlin etched in his mind, roads shining red like the lines of a circulatory system. Every street name within fifteen miles is his to know. Stop. Parse another sentence. This city isn’t his to know. One of the concrete towers of a factory belches out a cloud of thick, crenellated smoke. Levi knows where every star should be, in a night sky obscured with ash and sulphur. Tram lines become his constellations, street signs his stars. He does not belong to this city, but, somehow, it belongs to him.

Every mission ends. This time, it’s with his finger pressing down on the trigger.

 

 

 

 

Erwin takes him up one day to an apartment in a remote part of town, taps the floorboards with the heel of his shoe until the finds a hollow point, then pulls out the bits and pieces of wood one by one with a knife until he reveals a metal case. When he presses the sniper rifle within it in Levi’s hands, he almost splutters before he catches himself.

“What the hell is this? I haven’t fired one in _years_ ,” Levi says, the bite in his voice turning to vicious awe as he turns the weapon over in his hands, feeling the weight of it.

“You’ll do better with it than me, I’m afraid. I’ll act the spotter for you, don’t worry,” Erwin says, unperturbed. “You said our target walks every day to this quaint little café in Potsdamer Platz, orders a coffee, always black, no sugar, and enjoys reading his newspaper for the duration of his break. Did I miss anything?”

“Not really, no. He’s not a very interesting person, I’ll give you that,” Levi says, mildly.

“Pack it up. We’re moving out now if we’re to have enough time to prepare the shot,” Erwin says, and it’s not quite an order, but he doesn’t brook any arguments either.

“What happened to making it look like an accident?” Levi asks, even as he moves to oblige.

“Your superiors already know who I am, courtesy of you,” Erwin answers, more a statement of fact than an accusation, “even if superficially enough not to pose much of a conundrum. I’m passed the point of playing it on the safe side and I want them to know just what I can do when I put my mind to it.”

“One moment you’re so elusive, I’ve a hard time thinking of you as more than a shadow, whereas sometimes you love kicking the hornet’s nest with ruthless determination. What are you playing at, Erwin Smith?”  The inquiry is rhetorical, not just because Levi hates asking questions he doesn’t already know the answer to, but also because it’s in Erwin’s nature to remain a closed book, now and always. The walls he’s built around himself are made of flesh and blood and bone, true, but Levi doesn’t think he’d very much like what he’d find staring back if he tore them down, or so he tells himself.

“I’m playing at performing unpredictability, if you will. Humans are creatures of habit, yearning to find a trace of familiarity in your actions. It gives them a sense of control, you see,” Erwin says, intimidating in the way he has just before he’s about to reveal a winning hand. Levi believes it suits him well, like a coat of burnished red. “This is how you turn the tables. Become deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to lack consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Used well, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.”

Levi raises an eyebrow, the words shifting something within as if he’d found a dark mirror to peer into and his reflection spoke back. “Advice from one spy to another?”

The threat of a smile plays about Erwin’s lips before he continues,” Come. We have work to do.”

The light of day glares white down upon them, making the starkness of imminent violence seem staged. Perched on top of a building with a clear line of sight to the target, Levi exhales a weighted breath, lets himself slip into the mindset of a sniper, until all of him unfurls and leaves nothing but the mark. Time dilates, Erwin’s presence at his side, calculating slant range and mil dot on a pocket notebook he’d brought along with an adroitness that would impress even him, feels miles away. The weather is perfect for what they’re about to do, and the corrections Erwin supplies are minimal, so Levi clicks off the safety, locks his muscles to keep the gun steady, the pocket of silence interjected into the pulsebeat of the world broken by a loud _crack_ at Smith’s orders.

Suddenly, it’s all broken glass, cutting screams, a graveyard made out of the bright red afternoon and a bullet hole beneath a checkered suit that all the bandages in the world couldn’t clog up.

_“We are singing now while Rome burns,”_  Levi hears him whisper, voice rough with awe, and he turns his head, expecting to find the other agent’s gaze arrested by the panic unfolding below them on the street, only to notice Erwin staring at him with an intensity that makes the scathing response he’d prepared perish in his throat.

Erwin exhales a breath, and when the warmth spreads across Levi’s face he realizes just how close they are, the blond man’s arm a heavy presence where he’d placed it for support across his lower back. There’s pride in his eyes, along with something else Levi has no name for, and he finds that being looked at like he’s better than the worst thing he ever did, like his whole existence is a torch song bright enough to set back even the stars in their sockets, makes his heart beat like a soldier’s march, but.

It feels too much like something that doesn’t – _couldn’t_ – exist; his eyes slide down to Erwin’s mouth and all he can think of is tasting the wrong end of a bullet, of swallowing a lit match, and suddenly he’s filled with so much terror, he has to lower his gaze to keep it from showing, the uncomfortable twitch of his body hidden badly behind a roll of his shoulders.

Erwin must notice it, because he pulls back almost before Levi murmurs that they should go before they both end up dead in an alleyway somewhere, and if he’s got that knowing look of his painted obvious across his face, he doesn’t say anything. Levi thanks providence for small miracles as they race down the stairs, and even if they don’t exchange any words, they part with the unspoken agreement of a later meeting before slipping off into the alert tempo of the streets, the crowd a shield against prying eyes.

 

 

 

 

“You know, when we talked about wanting to leave this hellhole, I never expected you’d actually take my words at face value. I mean, are you actually telling me to… to just jump into a car with you and ride out the front gate like it’s no trouble at all?!” Sadko babbles with a strong undercurrent of giddiness. “Have you finally gone mad? I mean, I always knew it was going to happen, but I expected something more along the lines of retreating to some long-forgotten corner of the world where you would proceed to diligently caress your compulsions while hissing at all of humanity, and not planning to acquire half a hundred bullet holes with the help of the nice gents who patrol the western border.”

“Charming as your ranting can be, I can’t wait for you all day. A contact with _your_ emigration papers in hand is waiting for us on the other side, and I didn’t spend the better part of a week cutting a compartment into my car for you to refuse to fold yourself inside it. Now stretch your limbs and get to it. It’ll be some time before you can come out safely,” Levi says, rolling his eyes with such prodigiousness as to give himself a headache.

“You’re pulling my leg,” Sadko says, still somewhat awestruck.

“I’m not pulling your leg. Nothing would induce me to touch your filthy leg. I can’t believe I have to talk you into leaving, speaking of which, I believe even our fearless leader has heard us talking all the way from his maggot infested grave.”

“Of course I’m coming, what do you take me for? Really, at this point even if they’d have wheeled in a surveillance cabinet in the middle of your apartment, all they’d have heard was you grumbling like an old geezer, forget about the state secrets. Speaking of which, how long have you been playing both sides?”

“We’ll talk about it later, now hop in and try to hold your breath,” Levi said, looking about ready to drive the car straight through the Berlin wall.

Sadko obliged, as on the rare occasions when Levi lets his angry passions rise, strong men climb trees and pull them up after them. Truthfully, bullet wounds had a small but real chance of being nonfatal, thus proving to be the far superior choice.

When border patrol signaled him to stop his car, Levi fumbled with his papers in an uncharacteristically clumsy way, feeling anxiety creep up on him like he’s never felt it before. His cover is supposed to be airtight, the false intelligence he’d fed to his handler over the past six months, carefully dosed so as not to rouse any suspicions, offering a justification for his impromptu trip to the west. Still, you lie for so long, you’re bound to become caught in it, and all it takes is for this one officer to be a hard-ass and request a full search and they’re done for.

Frankly, they’d be lucky to be shot in the back of the head. Not that they’d ever let Levi cash out so easily.

So he lowers the window, hands over the necessary documents with a surprisingly steady hand after offering the customary greeting, then folds his sweaty palms in his lap, settles his gaze on a distant point before him, empties his mind and waits.

He’s never been good at small talk, or putting people at ease with a quirk of the lips, so he avoids doing it, especially now, when Levi is certain any smile he would force upon his face would look more like a sinister grimace. His employers had a different use for his skillset anyway, and if there’s something he’s good at, it’s toeing the line between ruthless competence and the illusion of frailty, the shadowplay of confidence and rawness consuming and resuming themselves by turns.

He fits the scope of what people expect to see when they read his file, and that’s all they ever look for. Still, the performance subsumes the person, who he was and who he might want to be one day, a stasis of the self, not difficult for someone who must be accustomed to holding two contradictory thoughts in his head at the same time. Parlor games for demons.

The officer starts talking, inquiring after the purpose of the visit, length of stay, then lapsing into chatter about travelling west for so-called business reasons. Levi answers curtly, no more, no less than he has to and wonders for a moment whether this man joined border patrol for the chance to throw down his gun and leg it to the other side just as soon as chance favors it, especially considering the mystified expression when Levi assures him that he _does_ intend to return and _no, I was really sent by the government for this, it says so right here_ —

The check he runs on the car is superficial at best, ultimately convinced of Levi’s unshakeable, by virtue of being usually non-existent, loyalty to the revolutionary tenets, or more likely just bored of the whole encounter.

After driving past the death strip between the two walls and finally crossing into the west, Levi blows out what should be a huge, weighted breath, but turns out to be more of a wheeze, and at that exact moment Sadko chooses to start laughing uproariously. Levi is positive the car is shaking from it, the relief he feels momentarily erasing the urge to reach out and bang his fist against the side of the hidden compartment to get his friend to stop howling.

When they arrive at the rendezvous point, the city so completely, utterly alien, but still the same, because history is never that easy to scrub clean, Levi helps him out of the car and takes out his luggage before telling him to wait. It was Erwin’s idea to hand him the documents separately a safe distance away. Ignorance being bliss and all that, it was better if Sadko didn’t have any intel to divulge about his benefactors, no matter what happened in the future.

Erwin is leaning against the hood of his car when he rounds the corner and sees him, dossier held neatly at his side, the suit he’s wearing obscenely snug around his frame. It’s ironic and oh so fitting that while Levi has been the most adamant about standing one’s ground, he turned out to be the best at running, so he takes the files, hums in acknowledgement at the words Erwin speaks but does not want to hear right now, and walks briskly away to where he came from, feeling very much like a coward. He’s been many things in his life, but he’s never been _brave._ Not like this. Not when it matters most.

He doesn’t notice the way Erwin’s eyes linger before the city swallows him whole.

 

 

 

 

“Welcome to your new life, comrade. Pray that it serves you well,” Levi says as he washes his hands clean of this mess once and for all. Sadko doesn’t bother to hide the relief he feels.

“I don’t have enough words to thank you for doing this for me and I don’t know half as much as I’d wish to,” Sadko says, a tremor passing through his voice. “All I know is that I helped you when you asked it of me, drove where you told me to, kept my mouth closed and my ears peeled, and I don’t want you to tell me anything about your affairs. This war is now yours to fight and yours to keep. But I still want to ask you… do you know what you’re getting into?”

Levi doesn’t answer because there is no answer; because he doesn’t know, but at the same time he does, wishes that he didn’t, and some things, they are too many to tell.

Sadko senses the atmosphere becoming colder, so he nods once, not an understanding but still an acceptance nevertheless, and eschews Levi’s outstretched hand for a bonecrushing hug as a token of departure.

The sun is descending beneath the horizon when Sadko leaves, whistling a tune down the streets of an unknown Berlin while Levi stays behind in his ever lengthening shadow, something unnameable pulsing in his chest.

 

 

 

 

It’s dark beneath the berlinese sky when Levi rejoins Erwin beneath the bright glare of a streetlight, and the first words out of the other man’s mouth after so much radio silence are “You could stay, if you wanted. I won’t keep you from doing that.”

For a moment, the absurdity of the situation hits Levi like the reverberation of electricity though his nervous system and he could almost laugh, but he isn’t so sure he would be able to stop himself if he does. “You don’t _keep_ me from doing anything.”

“I know, I know. It’s just a figure of speech, God,” Erwin says, almost shifting around in discomfort; _will wonders never cease_ , Levi thinks. “This doesn’t need to be like pulling teeth, you know, unless you want it to.”

Levi raises an eyebrow. “You know I’m so good at pulling out teeth, too. I still don’t know what you want from me here, though.”

Erwin raises an eyebrow right back at him, an admittedly much more impressive sight, before snorting. “You’re good at everything. It’s part of why you’re my favourite murderous lunatic in the branch. What I’m trying to say is, if you want a clean getaway, you can have it. The help you’ve offered is invaluable and I wouldn’t trade it for anything less, but you’ve earned your options. I want to know that, if you’re still in this to the end, you realize what you’ve forfeited and that you’re ready to dedicate yourself heart, body and soul because there’s no coming back to any of it after this point.”

Uncomfortable truths make for a cold comfort, and Levi had been left behind before, by a country that withered in a poison wind faster than a running blaze spreading on a plain, and he won’t let it happen again, not with the sickness of the realization that when he’d pulled that trigger a while back, it didn’t feel like it usually did.

It felt like coming home. And that’s a truth not any syringe full of morphine and a glass of straight vodka can wipe out of mind.

It does not bother him, this wreck beneath his skin, because it’s a weapon just like everything else and it serves its purpose well. Because soldier boys are soldier toys, and somewhere in the road between Moscow and Warsaw a part of him was burnt clean, brutal and honest in the same way it shows on Erwin’s face and bearing, everything about their shared history negating and atomizing itself into this one shared singularity. Perhaps some things are too much to know, but sometimes all you ever need is _one_ , and Levi could swear on his mother’s grave that when Erwin meets his own eyes in the mirror, a man who is precisely what he needs to be looks back, and if that isn’t reason enough for him to offer his hand to the wolf wholesale, tourniquet be damned, then he doesn’t know what it is.

“If you think that I’m the sort of man to sit himself on the sidelines and nurse his thumb with his asshole like the world’s biggest waste of breath, then you’ve got another thing coming,” Levi says, and Erwin looks at him, dead-blue underneath his eyelashes, hair the color of golden-cracked moors, scorched earth policy in human form, and then smiles, slow and lazy.

“Then let’s get to it, shall we. A coup won’t plan itself and I’ve got an apartment in this city that’s been dying to be made use of.”

Now, Levi wouldn’t hesitate to agree if by one off chance someone might call him crazy for taking up that offer, but Erwin’s at the wheel, with a cigarette Levi’s lit between his teeth, driving like hell’s biting at their heels  –  frankly, he’s far too busy watching the play of the streetlights on that smirk he usually keeps hidden, but at this moment is painted filthy in gorgeous, terrible chiaroscuro on the planes of his face – and there isn’t a place in the world he’d rather be in than this.

 

 

 

 

Erwin’s apartment is nice and tidy because _of course_ it is, though it hasn’t lost that museum-like quality that suggests no one’s actually done much actual living in it. As far as Levi can see, it’s been used more as a book storage, volumes stacking every available shelf, and much to his curiosity, most of them seem to belong on the Party-issued banned list. He wonders if Erwin intentionally saved those or if it was just coincidence, listening to the sounds of the other man banging around the kitchen for some canned food that hasn’t gotten stale.

“You know, I don’t hate the _whole_ ideology, really. I mean, if there was ever a day when the poor man got to walk in the rich man’s house, sleep in his bed and eat at his table, I’d come running faster than you could say _Беда́ не прихо́дит одна._ Hell, I’d leave the house in better shape than when I arrived, too,” Levi says, as he skims his eyes over the book titles.

“You’re really something, did you know that,” Erwin says as he emerges out of the kitchenette with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Levi accepts one, and almost hates the way that even this cheap sort tastes far better than anything he’s had up till now, the alcohol not the only thing rasping bitter in the back of his throat. He almost makes the mistake of thinking about the famine and risks losing whatever appetite he has.

“So, what’s the plan? How _do_ you topple a regime?” Levi asks, changing the subject. “Unless we have the proletariat on our side, which we mostly do—“

“We don’t know that for sure. There’s support from outside the walls, but on the _inside_? People are afraid to so much as think about these things, and this isn’t 1984, but it could be, and when the most optimistic reading is that one in twenty-two citizens is an informant for the Stasi—“

“One in four, more accurately,” Levi says, leaning back against the wall. “I never thought I’d give credit to the guy who said something along the lines of ‘ _would it not be simpler if the government simply dissolved the people and elected another?’,_ but there you have it. I know how a revolution starts. I’ve seen it first-hand. But I’ve also seen how revolutions end, and when the set-up of your story involves people standing inside impressive buildings, looking down with apathy and disgust as the people below them ready their Molotovs and stolen Dragunovs, well, let’s just say it doesn’t have a happy ending.”

Erwin sighs, swirling the red liquid in its glass. “Disseminating information amongst the masses and coordinating even a small resistance would necessitate some very careful maneuvering. Can’t blame them, though, can we? They stand to lose more than just their lives, and a man may fight for freedom and justice, but when he lies on the brink of having not only himself, but his family and friends stripped of any and all human dignity, well…” he says, before pausing and looking thoughtful for a moment. “You said you saw a revolution first-hand. Tell me, what do you know about it?”

Levi shrugs with studied carelessness. “Not much, actually. The subtleties of politics tend to elude me. About the only thing I know with certainty is that you _never_ , under _any_ circumstance, hit a cop. That just gives them free reign to do whatever they want to you. A moot point in this case, as they’re already capable of that and more,” Levi says, moving to place the almost empty glass on the coffee table before sitting down on the sofa. “The people need a centralizing force, Erwin. Someone to organize them, someone to look up to as a leader. The old order of revolutionaries may be dead, but there are still some remnants left. If there was ever a man smart enough for the job, it’s you.”

Erwin snorts, looking at him incredulously.

“Don’t give me that look. You could leave for war with fifty soldiers and come back with fifty-one, so don’t sell yourself short,” Levi says, the hint of a smirk playing about his lips.

That makes Erwin bark out a laugh. "Now, see, look at that. Right now, I can’t tell if you’re complimenting me or just being facetious.”

“Both,” Levi says, tone flat. “In all seriousness, you could make for one hell of a leader, if you tried.” And there it is, the bait. For a moment, he’d been afraid that Erwin would catch and call his bluff, but now he leans forward, rests his arms on his knees, coiled like a spring. It’s hard to fight in a hall of mirrors, and even tyrannicide can become a beautiful word in the right light.

“Alright then,” Erwin says, and there’s something in the subtle roll of his shoulders that makes Levi’s mouth go dry. “I’ll play. Let’s say I blow my cover completely. Let’s say I’ll write five hour speeches that people will have to read hunched over in the shadows before the words are consumed by the flames of a candle. Let’s say I design a system of information to rival even the brutal propaganda machine of the Soviets. But that won’t be the first of my worries, not even close. You see, my number one priority would be to ensure that whatever protest happens, happens peacefully. Not because it would be the noble thing to do, or even the good thing, but because violence is used to re-write history, to make motives murky and paint protesters as dangerous radicals who had it coming, and the moment the tanks, the police, the soldiers arrive at the barricade and the people panic and run into the streets dressed in their own blood, that’s when I will have lost my fight.”

Erwin’s eyes are piercing and arresting, mouth all a vicious snarl, and Levi knew he always had a devil of a habit for being right.

“Collateral is collateral, but there’s a time and a place where it becomes the most important thing you can think of, where all your plans and skills and clever twists are worth less than nothing if you don’t take it into account. You have to be unrelenting, untouchable and in control to win, but it isn’t everything. It isn’t even the start of everything. Our fight takes place between the fronts, on both sides and beyond them. The people don’t need me. They are strong enough on their own,” Erwin says, voice weighed down with conviction.

Levi’s eyes widen, and he has to bite his tongue to hide the smile that would betray him. This is what he’d been waiting for, and the next breath he takes, he finds is the easiest one in his life.

“Here’s something for you, then. Deep down, it’s always the people doing the dirty work that are more optimistic than the ones in the light,” Levi says, rapturously slow. “It’s because they can look through the filth and see something worth getting dirty for.”

Erwin doesn’t say anything. He lifts the wineglass and drinks, lips and eyes stained with the dark gloss of an exsanguinated vein. A promise, terrible and great.

 

 

 

 

They keep dancing around each other all the way through the meager dinner, Erwin pretending that he doesn’t know what it means when his eyes slide down another man’s thighs, Levi turning over and over in his head the few words he knows that could possibly make sense of this, but they keep falling somewhere in the killing field between a nonchalant _care for a smoke?_ and a hard edged _do you want an overdose, perhaps?_

But there’s no use in militarizing the body after the thrills that never come cheap have already played their part. Always another job, always looking for another exit where there was none, with no time left to give to the messy human excesses he’s got hiding somewhere deep. Not because it would be a sin – that would be a riot, Levi thinks, to believe that it takes more courage to kill a man than to fall for one – or because it’s cleaner to only empathize with the dead, but because it’s a coded weakness, a train-wreck straight through the heart. He can read people like road signs but he can get nothing from them, and that suited him more than fine, except now he _wants._ He wants it all, and for all that it wouldn’t be fair to Erwin, not that he deserves or even trusts in _fair,_ to hand him over a conglomerate of pieces that don’t fit well together and never will reads like a betrayal.

Still, the only right moment there will ever be is the one before the passing of a bullet through an eye, and Levi never claimed to not be selfish, so he reaches out with hands that know what it is to strangle a man to death, and if in this life he has only learnt how to watch everything die, it still has to happen for it to matter.

His fingers close around Erwin’s wrist, draws his attention to him, and he must know what this means because suddenly he looks wrecked and _nervous_ , and Levi decides, if he ever had to have a weakness, it would be this. Erwin’s looking at him, in the same way you can’t look away from a car crash, and for a tenuous moment he thinks that Erwin might say no, that the beauty of their mutual ruin might not be assured.

But then he inhales a sharp breath, grasps him like a drowning man, kisses him, and all of Levi’s perception dies down to feeling the soft bow of Erwin’s upper lip that he’s thought about so often between his teeth, the slick warmth of their tongues sliding against each other, the heat of Erwin’s hands supporting him, the tiny, throaty gasps and the way he could feel everything shuddering, breaking apart, body curving forward weakly.

“I’ve got you,” Erwin murmurs against his mouth when they pull apart, voice rough, reverent, and a little shattered.

It’s a reassurance, but it holds a much headier, slightly unsettling meaning, and Levi’s fingers dig into the skin of Erwin’s arms, feeling unbalanced and beyond overwhelmed.

“Levi, it’s only me. Only me. You’re safe here.” Erwin cups Levi’s jaw, as the latter leans into the caress with a soft, almost self-deprecating laugh at the catastrophe of this pretend play at normalcy. Power lies with whoever cares least, is what he’d known all his life; right now, Levi is not sure he’ll ever be able to stop, as he pulls Erwin down once more.

 

 

 

 

Turns out, Erwin doesn’t have a lot of experience in this field, but he’s more than adaptable, and he learns to suck cock, and to like it, to _really_ like it, to the point where he comes just from doing it, and Levi takes in a breath to say something about it just as his orgasm hits him, harder than he’s ever felt it before.

Later, when they finally make it to the bed, Erwin gentles him down with words and caresses, rubs something slick on the inside of his thighs, and when Levi feels Erwin’s cock sliding in the wet heat between his legs, he begins to understand his fascination. It feels good, in a way he hadn’t expected, like burning alive and shattering into pieces, and as they’re lying on their sides, Erwin half covering him, Levi starts to fear he might go mad, Erwin’s hands mapping his body, wrapping around his throat to tilt his head in for a kiss, descending over his chest, the dip of his waist, his hips, his thighs, and back up again to pet his cock just once before starting over again.

Erwin groans and pants wetly into his ear amidst kisses and bites pressed to his throat, and when Levi clenches his thighs in response, the uncontrolled moan he lets out is positively filthy. Head reeling and unable to stop himself, Levi reaches down to stroke himself, but his hand is enveloped by Erwin’s who presses them against his side, whispering _not yet, not yet_ and Levi bucks back hard against his hips, dizzy with arousal, stifling a whimper against the pillow.

His eyes roll into the back of his head with the feeling of Erwin’s cock hard and thick and dripping between his thighs, and he feels more than hears Erwin’s rumbled curse as he guides both of their hands to his neglected arousal, just when Levi feared he might truly lose himself, and it’s precisely this feeling, of Erwin controlling, dictating the strokes of his hand, that makes him come undone completely. Soon enough, Erwin follows him, with a long, low moan, and Levi can’t help but kiss him, uncoordinated and hungry, on his red and open mouth.

They lay pressed close together long after the trembling stops. Some time from now, day will break.

 

 

 

 

There is blood on his hands that does not belong to him, and Erwin is finding it a little harder to breathe in the aftermath. Levi has stopped breathing altogether, face like a stone as he watches Erwin run his fingers distractedly through his hair, leaving behind a thin, red trail. A master stroke without compare, Levi thinks.

“When all the drains in this city are plugged up with blood and bone and human hair, will you still survive?” Erwin asks, dark and contemplative. “Will you fight at my side till you and I die, and die, and die again?”

“You are so strange, sometimes,” Levi says, lets the fondness almost creep into his voice, because this, all of it, is against their rules. For a moment he wonders why Erwin even needs to ask, because the violence of him is all he ever needs, and he wouldn’t let that go for anything, except this is a trick question, a dare, a wager.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” he says, calm, as if he isn’t serving the world back to him on a platter, and when Erwin doesn’t reply, sees a weakness to exploit. “Why, do you love me?” And that too goes against the rules.

“Love is whatever you can still betray,” Erwin says, lets him hear it in his voice, the only thing he’s got left in his scorched and smoking heart. Up above, the clustered stars were burning for all eternity as time bled black at their sides.

The air smelled of rain but no rain fell and to the east the silent lightning rigged a broken lyre upon the world’s dark rim, beneath which the beginning of almost extinguishes.

 

 

 

 

Nothing lasts. There is comfort in that, Levi has found, a small and ugly thing, or something that might pass for it in a bad light. There are times, however, and this is one of them, when the cost is too steep and not enough at the same time, and it figures that their downfall would come like this, fast and relentless like the bullet that’s now lodged in Erwin’s gut.

He won’t die from this. Not yet, anyway. It takes several hours of agony for it to end and Levi won’t let it get that far, not if he can help it, but the safe house is too far away, and at this rate it’s too risky a gamble, not when he’s unsure if he can get the bleeding to stop when they get there ( _if_ , Erwin corrects him and Levi grits his teeth), or if he can find a doctor who can be bought.

The city becomes a maze of locked doors and barred alleyways, terror following the blaring sound of sirens and the yapping of dogs getting closer, and Levi damns it all for a moment and drags both of them into an apothecary.

“Get me some bandages. Disinfectant. _Anything_ ,” he says, voice rough with desperation.

The clerk behind the counter stands frozen, staring at the shirt daubed red with blood, eyes wide.

Levi’s whole visage darkens in anger. “Come on. We’ve got a date,” he says to Erwin, as he guides them both back outside, knowing what is waiting for them.

“Levi…” Erwin whispers, weak, but still stubborn as all hell.

The police beat the shit out of Levi in the street and once more at the station for clarity, Erwin’s eyes becoming burning centroids of murder as he watches it unfold, and Levi hopes he’s not delusional enough to do something stupid, but at least he doesn’t bleed to death in the middle of a filthy street or in a ratty apartment.

They don’t go thanking God just yet.

 

 

 

 

They are separated almost immediately, which is why Erwin doesn’t find out Levi has escaped until four weeks down the line, from some wannabe tough-as-nails officer screaming into his face and demanding to know where Levi’s run off to. As if he’d tell them if he knew. He allows himself a moment of private victory when he’s placed back in his cell.

_Check, darling. You really are as good as they say,_ he never whispers, hiding a smile, because Levi is out of their reach now, untouchable, and if he’s coming back, it will be with fire at his side.

( “I should have hit you _harder_ , boy,” Metzger hisses, livid, and the second mistake they made is in thinking that, with three of his ribs broken, bruises covering enough skin that they start to overlap, and his hands cuffed, Levi would be as close to harmless as possible, and that leaving him alone with his handler in an office to appeal to his former life would be a wise course of action. Their first mistake was letting the both of them live.

“Yes, you should have,” Levi says, raising his now unbound hands like an illusionist waiting for his thunderous applause, because there’s a theatrics to escaping ruin. The world must see you thrashing against the chains, chipping your teeth on the lock, and then they _want_ to believe in this beautiful lie, a want they cannot cut down in the best of cases.

These selfsame hands lash out, quick as a viper, stopping Metzger’s scream in the cradle, and then it’s over, with a satisfying snap.

Levi doesn’t bother with the stairs, exits the building through the window and hits the ground running, and war is not exactly what he wants, but it’s _exactly_ what those bastards are going to get, and now he’s gone and lifted up that poison cup so he might as well drink.)

Torture is part and parcel of interrogations, and Erwin had been prepared for the worst since he took up this job in the first place. Only now they’ve gone and placed him in a room, and he knows what this is, _sensory deprivation_ is its nicer name, a hell apart, because you might try compartmentalizing physical pain, but once your mind breaks down it’s all lost, and isn’t it just fitting, that the one thing they decide to torture him with is also the one thing Erwin values most above all.

The room is isolated against all sound, both from the outside and the inside, an oubliette at the center of earth, for all its lack of features. He knows the technicalities, the brain starts to generate its own sort of stimuli in the absence of real-life ones, hallucinations a frail resistance against an impeding breakdown, and he wishes he had a safer place to put his memories in.

He is alone, with his hands his mind the systole of his rubymeated heart that hangs inside him, then the absence of answer. He is alone like a dog in a kennel and he does not have a single thing left to lose.

All of him is silence.

 

 

 

 

Their third and final mistake is in deporting him to a Gulag.

In a forest near Kraków, the armored vehicle swerves, spins off the road like a pinwheel, and before Erwin has the chance to right himself, the doors swing open and Levi is standing there, beneath the overcast sky, and he might be dreaming this, except Levi is warm and heavy in his lap, grasping him close with all his strength.

When he pulls back, Levi is smiling at him, and Erwin doesn’t know how he ever thought he could go on without him, how he could have wished that he’d never return, and he loves him so much he thinks his heart might just break.

Erwin finds he wouldn’t mind that at all.

“What shall we do now?” he asks, as Levi leads him out of the wreckage, grip tight around his hand.

“Now? We keep running,” Levi says, something terrible and perfect in his eyes.

The road ahead is pockmarked with bullet holes, and a war is a war, no matter how well you soldier on.

The Pleiades turn on a fixed point. They keep running.

**Author's Note:**

> \- East Germany was notorious for the massive amount of surveillance carried out on its citizens by its Secret Police, the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security), known as "Stasi". Its police force, the Volkspolizei (People's Police, known as "Vopos" for short) were also fairly infamous.
> 
> \- the passage Levi paraphrases at one point, "Would it not be be simpler then for the government, To dissolve the people and elect another?", comes from the poem The Situation, where its author, Bertolt Brecht, criticizes the government for the way it handled the workers' uprising of 1953
> 
> \- "Беда́ не прихо́дит одна" means 'trouble never comes alone', or 'misery loves company'
> 
> \- the Holodomor (meaning 'extermination by hunger'), or the Ukrainian Holocaust, was a man-made famine with far-reaching and horrific consequences


End file.
